(Open Log) You gotta know when to hold 'em

[bindlestifflost]

Who: George Milton, Nick Valentine, and anybody who shows up
When: April 22, starting around 6 PM until
Where: Apartment A-3
Summary: A night for playing cards, drinking beer or b.y.o.b. if harder, snacks and unwinding. Feel free to thread jack and jump all around, at least in my threads. This is just for some relaxed down time and catching up or introductions in a smaller, casual space.
Warnings: None expected. If your characters get to discussing anything triggery or get up to anything spicy, please CW in your individual threads.



Over the past week or so, hand printed signs drawn in sharpie on plain paper have shown up taped to walls around the apartment complex and on any easily accessible bulletin boards at ADI. A couple of them were also delivered to the flophouse with the request they be displayed somewhere the residents might see them.

They read:
Cards and Beer
Friday April 22 6 PM
Apartment A 3
George and Nick's place
You want more than beer
or chips and popcorn
bring your own.
Extra decks appreciated.

The night of, the door to A 3 is propped open. In addition to the dining table, a couple of card tables and cheap folding chairs are set up for games. Two bowls on the coffee table contain chips and popcorn respectively. There's a cooler on the floor in the kitchen filled with ice and cheap beer.

George or Nick will greet people as they come in and tell them to make themselves at home.

((OOC: Feel free to top level with your own character and make whatever prompts you like. George is generally easy-going, but if he catches anyone stealing, getting too hot and heavy in a bedroom, or otherwise being a general jerk about the apartment or the other guests, he will try to throw the offender out. If you want that kind of thread or want to succeed at something nefarious, let me know so we can work it out.))

Comments

[failedpromise]

"Optimistic of you to think I'd even show up to that kind of party." Her outfit choice might make it hard to believe, but she's not that kind of girl.

She sighs, and stamps her foot. "I'll go get my shirt." After a moment, she sets down the box of seltzer and the deck of cards. "Have someone take these in for me?"

Whether he does or not, she's going to go. (Given where he's looking, he might notice the wing markings on her back.) A few minutes later, she'll come back wearing a sweatshirt. It's oversized enough that it actually affords decent coverage, even without any pants. At least, you're going to have to actually be trying to get a look at her tits or ass.

[bindlestifflost]

He bites down on his retort that he'd be the last one to throw one, given she's agreeing to do as he asked without kicking up more of a fuss about it. "Thanks," he says, his voice a little rough. Of all of the things he's trying to get used to here, people running around naked with nobody saying a damned thing about it is high on the list of weirder.

"Yeah, I'll do that." He bends to pick up the carton and deck. He takes the markings for tattoos, which only cements his impression she's one of those shameless sorts, or maybe even grew up in a circus for all he knows.

When she returns, he lets her in without any further fuss. Bare legs are also something he's not all that used to. He's not so stupid he won't pick his battles. "Glad you could make it. Beer's in the kitchen along with food some people brung. You can help yourself."

[failedpromise]

A tattoo is a reasonable enough assumption, though given her translucency, the faint circuitry lines covering nearly every inch of her, and the little glowing lights and symbols moving along those lines, the dark markings could just as easily be natural.

...Except, of course, nothing about her was natural.

She smirks at his words. "You know I can't actually eat, right?"

[bindlestifflost]

"I do now, don't I?" He shakes his head and aborts a gesture of folding his arms. Whatever goodwill she earned being patient with him in the class is evaporating real quick like now.

"You got a mouth. Not like any a' that's real obvious. We got blue people," he gestures at Jester carrying an armload of cookies, "and robots," another gesture at Nick setting up some cards. "They both eat." Not that Nick has to. That's beside the point.

[failedpromise]

Cortana blinks, surprised.

"Nick can eat? I guess we both learned something today." Can he taste? She'll have to ask sometime.

The surprise seems to have derailed the sass at least.

"For future reference, I'm more like Nick than-I haven't met her before, actually" someone she'll need to introduce herself to in the future, "just made of light instead of metal." So now he knows a little about her.

[bindlestifflost]

"Yeah, he can. He don't often, but he can." There's something a little...softer maybe...in his expression when he glances back over at his roommate again. "Cooks a mean lobster mac, too." That had been a nice surprise.

"I didn't know. There's a whole lotta people and things I don't know the first thing about here." He's easing out of defensiveness more into curiosity. "How do you..." He's not completely sure how to ask it. The concept is almost beyond his way of thinking entirely. "How's light solid?"

[failedpromise]

"Wonder if he'd teach me." Cortana doesn't eat food, but she does have a metabolic process that involves processing data, and she's a massive glutton for new knowledge.

...Also it'd make her more useful. This body is nice, but its limitations get to her sometimes.

"Well, if it helps, I used to not be: I stole the technology for this little trick from aliens, if you can believe it." She smirks, clearly very satisfied with her ill gotten gains. "As for how it works... does 'they use a lot of energy to excite light particles until they start displacing the air around them' suffice, or do you want the two hours of technobabble explanation?" She might be the sort to want it, but she's pretty sure most humans would consider it to be a party dampener.

[bindlestifflost]

"He's pretty easygoin'. I'm sure it couldn't hurt to ask." He's not sure how a robot could explain eating to another one or how all of that would work, and fortunately for him, he's also not curious enough to follow that thought line too far.

"If you'd said that to me a couple a' weeks ago, I'd have said you were cuckoo." His expression still holds some incredulity, from the entire situation he has landed in. Oh yeah. He believes in aliens now. All sorts of other things, too.

"I think I'm good sticking with the dumbed down version." That one is already at the edges of what he can process. "You gonna play some cards?"

[failedpromise]

Cortana actually meant learning to cook: eating is likely forever beyond her capabilities, but this current body requires fear if she wants to use even her most basic AI abilities, and she feels useless as a result.

"Maybe later." She probably shouldn't interrupt Nick's fun to ask about food.

And then George mentions being cuckoo and Cortana flinches. Oh buddy you don't even know. And she's not telling.

She looks past George to whatever game is currently ongoing. "I think I will."

[bindlestifflost]

He nods. He's at least passed on what he knows to ease the way. It's enough as far as he's concerned.

"Yeah? Good. Got a few different decks. I imagine we'll get a few different kinds a' games goin' pretty quick. Which one you like best?" He will forever and always be partial to Euchre and solitaire, but he has no intention of taking a whole deck to himself for the latter tonight.

[failedpromise]

"Would you believe me if I told you I've never played most of them? I've got all the rules in my databases, though." Not many people want to gamble with an AI, and even fewer want to do it when said AI is an absolute little shit.

Besides, Halsey had always preferred chess.

[bindlestifflost]

"I could believe it. So tonight gets to be somethin' new. Ain't at all a bad thing," he says. Judging by the way the sharks are already circling tables and settling in, George believes most of these people have played before, some of them way more than him looks like.

[failedpromise]

"Always nice to try something new." AI live for that sort of thing-the anticipation is shining in her eyes.

She glances at the people gathering at the tables.

"Hope they don't mind playing against someone with perfect memory." She might be new to the game, but she's probably going to be just as formidable as the rest.

[bindlestifflost]

"I don't think most a' these folks are gonna mind that one bit. Ol' Slick over there may give you a run for your money." He nods toward Nick, his expression clearly fond. "And I don't know who else. More skill than I'm used to seein' in the bunkhouse, though." It makes him glad the stakes are literally penny, at least for some of the games.

[failedpromise]

"Probably. Bet he's got one Hell of a poker face." She grins.

"Good to know things won't be completely unfair."

[bindlestifflost]

"He sure does. Go get 'em." He flashes her a smile and then heads over into the kitchen to make sure the food's where everybody can get to it if they want and be a generally decent host with what he's got to work with.